William Buchan and "Domestic Medicine"

I will give you a break from disgusting diseases with incomprehensible cures, and tell you a little about some "biggies" in medicine in the 18th century.  Let's start with Dr. Buchan.

William Buchan, MD
In several of the last posts I have mentioned Buchan, who wrote Domestic Medicine; or, the Family physician Chiefly calculated to recommend a proper attention to regimen and simple medicines.  There was a growing desire at the time for self-help health care books (Porter, Roy.  Bodies Politic: Disease, Death and Doctors in Britain, 1650-1900 (London: Reaktion Books, 2001), 152).  Remember, physicians were expensive, didn't have much hope of curing people, and were not well thought of.  "[H]ardly any eighteenth century scientific advance helped heal the sick directly.  ... [T]he net contribution of physicians to the relief and cure of the sick remained marginal." (Porter, Roy.  The Greatest Benefit to Mankind: a Medical History of Humanity (London: WW Norton and Company, 1997), 266.)

William Buchan, MD

Buchan was trained in Edinburgh, Scotland, (so was not part of the London "old boy" network) and decided to write a book that counteracted the secrecy of medical treatments and their practitioners, in order that everyone could become healthier.  Domestic Medicine was a best-seller, remaining in print for 90 years (Porter, Bodies, 17).  John Wesley's Primitive Physick had the same objectives, and it also was a best-seller, staying in print for 135 years (Maddox, Health, 4).  In Scotland, it was said that the two books every home possessed were the Bible and Domestic Medicine (Porter, Bodies, 17), while in England the two books were the Bible and Primitive Physick (Webster, 231).  Domestic Medicine was aimed at a higher income group, since it sold for 6 shillings a copy, while Primitive Physick sold for 1 shilling.  (Madden, Deborah.  'A Cheap, Safe and Natural Medicine': Religion, Medicine and Culture in John Wesley's Primitive Physic (Amsterdam/New York: Rodolpi, 2007), 24 footnote.)  The difference in prices was not one of quality of information, but that Wesley's goal was to get health care information to the poor.  He spent all the profits from his tracts and books for relief of poor people (Whitehead, John, MD.  The Life of the Rev John Wesley, M.A. (London, 1793, republished Detroit 1853, 548 quoted in Bardell, Eunice.  "Primitive Physick: John Wesley's Receipts", Pharmacy in History, vol 27, #3, 1979, 120). As we have seen, when families had to determine their own diagnoses and treatments, self-help health care texts were incredibly useful.  So these two, one by a physician and one by a clergy, were both hugely popular.

Melanie King, editor

{Let me note here, in a snotty aside about Wesley's lack of recognition today, that Buchan's text was edited and republished in hardcover (right) in 2012 by the Bodleian Library in Oxford.  It can, as of this date, be preordered from amazon.com.  Wesley's volume, on the other hand, was legibly republished in paperback by The New Room in Bristol in 2007, but in the U.S. you can only buy photocopied (and therefore very difficult to read) copies via Amazon.  Cokesbury, the United Methodist publishing house, does not offer Primitive Physick at all and there is no U.S. outlet for The New Room's version.  One must order it from www.newroombristol.org.uk directly, including postage (Personal e-mail from Gary Best, warden, The New Room, 15 November 2012).  We have discussed previously how Wesley consulted over a 100 medical texts to compile his book, and knew as much as any physician of the time.  Would this publishing scenario be different if Wesley was not clergy and had been a physician?}